My thing in action

Every week, my inbox is filled with every type of car question you can think of. And believe me when I tell you, I enjoy reading each one. But aside from the garden variety “Which car would you recommend in this budget/category,” I’ve noticed a trend of questions over the years that are either born from urban legends, corporate paranoia, or hand-me-down tales from family drivers that I thought I would devote yet another column to tackling a few of the most common ones. 

Can a cellphone really blow up a gas station? I keep getting told not to use my cellphone while I’m filling up. Is there any logical reason for this?

Um, no. My guess is that some oil company executive or government watchdog read a Time magazine article in the mid-90’s that talked about the upcoming cellphone boom and took it literally. Or as a personal threat. Because despite all their warnings, there is not a single substantiated case that links cellphone usage with service station fires. And if there was, it is an even more amazing feat that the international mass media have conspired to conceal it.

So why, you ask, are these large multinationals adding fuel to the fire by issuing their own warnings and perpetuating the myth? Because if there is a risk, no matter how minuscule, they want to make sure their corporate butts are fireproof. Never mind that the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) and the American Petroleum Institute both issued statements denying the risk. The American Petroleum Institute said, “We can find no evidence of someone using a cellphone causing any kind of accident, no matter how small, at a gas station anywhere in the world.”

So what about switching off my engine while filling up? Surely that will cause the gas station to blow up, right?

I guess these gas companies have never seen F1 teams pump 80 liters of fuel into the car in a five-second pit stop while their engines are idling at 5,000rpm. Besides which, if that were true, how exactly do these fuel tankers pump the fuel into their gas stations? The fuel truck needs to be running and powering another motor to pump it all in there. So I can’t see how your compact hatch can be such a threat. 

But while the engine running may not cause gasoline stations to self-combust, there are at least some practical benefits from it. Firstly, if you ever have a wrong-fuel fill, they can simply drain your tank without it causing any damage to your engine. Also, there’s the environment; think about that poor gas boy that has to inhale all those fumes all day long. Plus it allows the attendants to check your oil etc. It is a courtesy more than anything and should be marked as such.

My family driver switches off the headlights in traffic. He says it will save battery. Let me guess, he used to drive a jeepney? Not just is this unsafe, it is like telling someone they will save money by taking off their glasses when they are not looking at anything. Hello?

I was always told to rev my engine just before switching it off to leave a little gas in the chamber when I restart.

Hey, good idea! Why not leave a little food stuck in between your teeth in case you get hungry later on? Although there was some grain of truth to this during the carburetor era, this is one of the worst things you can do to an EFI engine. Unburned gas will cause carbon build up and wreak havoc with your fuel system. Not to mention what leftover food will do to your teeth.

What about revving up in the morning to warm up the car? 

Here’s what I want you to do. Find whoever it was that told you this garbage, wake them up violently at 3am and make them do a hundred meter sprint. See how well they perform. Just like people, engines need a little time to get all the fluids running through their moving parts before they can operate at their peak. 90 percent of engine wear comes during cold starts when there is little lubrication. It is always best to start your car normally and drive off slowly for the first 5 minutes or so. No revving, no prolonged idling.

My driver told me to coast in neutral whenever I go downhill because it saves gas.Probably. But it could cost you your life. Have you ever tried steering a fully loaded shopping trolley around an obstacle going downhill? You lose the balance of the car plus it puts way too much strain on your brakes. Don’t even think about switching off your engine, it is like switching off your mind. Plus your brake pedal will feel like a block of wood.

Harmless as some of these myths may be, it can add even more confusion to our already chaotic roads. If it makes you feel any better though, there has also been no evidence or reports suggesting that running over a snake will make it twist itself around your axle and bite you once you’ve parked the car. And, as of this writing, the story of the couple that ran out of gas on Balete drive where the boyfriend ended up getting decapitated by a half man/half horse mythical creature, still remains unproven. Sadly, the C5 stories of kids running into the path of your car to fake an injury and extort money from you, however, is true. I actually saw it with my own two eyes.

Vehicular folklore remains rooted in our car culture and is kept smoldering throughout the years by man’s intimate bond with machine. (No relation to the times that man has been intimate in his machine.) This is largely due to the fact that we love our cars so much but are made vulnerable by our limited knowledge of how they work. 

And just like those old wives’ tales that have kept every new mother up at night worrying about their babies, mechanical myths and urban legends are here to stay. Some of us will even use these same stories to scare our children off from the dangers they face out there. Sure, there may not be a guy with a hook as a hand stalking lovers in scenic lookout points, but you’re not going to admit that to your 16-year-old daughter now, are you? Exactly. 

So, as time goes by, rather than these stories dwindling away, you will hear new variations of the classic tales, spun with a more modern twist to them because automobiles are as much an extension of our personalities as they are about transportation.